Merchant Queen
A conversation with you is a store
full of shoes
(just like the one you used to run)
I could never hope to fill:
the perfect son, the merchant prince,
the master of etiquette with unmarked skin.
Didn’t you work so I could have a choice?
But perhaps choice is a luxury
When your woman that birthed you abandons you in a cigarette shop
filled with men speaking in a foreign tongue
When your feet calluses from carrying water
day and night over a cobbled street
When your own brother turns your family against you
And the only way to survive was to learn, to steal, to sell
In your presence I always feel small, not enough, wrong
And our tongues speak the same words, yet
the only communication is another shackle: duty, reputation, money
Your love language is one I could never speak